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i did hear of some company that was working on flexible lcd screens that were supposed to be used in "futuristic" clothing designs. kinda like making the consumer into the ultimate walking billboard. now, not only will you have the logo on your sweatshirt.... you get the picture.

i dont think that was the original motivation for the project, i think it was an art/fashion thing, but i dont see that possibility being ruled out by anyone in advertising.

~mike

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One of the technologies being used for flexible screens is LEP, or Light Emitting Polymers.

At it's simplest form, the technology is based on molecules of plastic, sandwiched between two layers of polymer, applied to a substrate such as glass or plastic. Unlike an LED, it doesn't have to be on a glass panel, and since the polymers themselves are light emitting, there is no issue with viewing angle like an LCD, and no backlighting needed.

The displays are literally created with an inkjet printer. The printhead sprays the R-G-B-C (Red, Green, Blue, Conductive) polymers to the screen backing, which is them sandwiched between the electrode plates. I believe Seiko-Epson is currently the manufacturer working with Cambridge Display Technologies (which holds most of the LEP patents) to supply this printer.

Some of the the really cool applications of this technology could be custom size/shape screens, flexible screens, roll-up television/HT screens, etc.

Another very cool thing is that the screen resolution is not limited to 72dpi. It can actually be produced up to 200dpi.

It's not quite there yet... some of the downsides include degradation of the display brightness over time, and the last I knew they were still working on the blue polymers. As of aout 18 months ago, they had the red and greens up over 10K hours, but the blues are still at around 2K hours before the brightness starts to diminish. I'm not sure what the current state of affairs is, but I know is has been progressing rapidly towards commercial/consumer applications.

In any case, it's really cool stuff... I want it now! :-) I wouldn't care if the screen surface "wore out" after 2000 hours of use as long as it was cheaply replaceable and the electronics driver package didn't need to be replaced.